We've talked before about the things every computer user should know how to do, but we geeks are special: we want to go above and beyond, to explore every nook and cranny of our system and make everything easier. Here are ten ways to do just that.

8. Read and Understand Your Resource Usage

When your computer starts acting a little slow, a lot of people jump to their resource monitor to see what's causing problems. However, just looking at a bunch of charts and graphs isn't going to tell you what's wrong unless you really know what you're looking for. High CPU is a common problem with one app slowing your system down, and as soon as you close it, the issue should go away. High network activity could be the cause of slow internet or slow file transfers over the network. RAM usage, however, is where a lot of people get thrown off: high RAM usage isn't inherently a bad thing. Know the difference between good and bad RAM usage before you start blaming processes. If you want to keep an eye on your resources, check out our favorite system monitors for Windows, Mac, and Linux, too.

5. Learn to Crack Passwords (and Protect Yourself)

Everyone should know how to create a secure password, but responsible geeks can take it a step further by learning how to break into a comptuer. This skill—whether used on a Windows machineor a Mac—can really help you understand how computer thieves and hackers will try to get at your data. Learning the process means you know how to protect yourself against the process—not just with strong passwords but with encryption and other settings tweaks that keep thieves out. Similarly, you may also want to learn how to crack a Wi-Fi network's WEPand WPA password.

When all is said and done, this is probably way more than 10 tricks, but if you don't know any of the above, they should keep you busy for awhile. If you have an idea we didn't list, be sure to mention it in the comments below.